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For the fourth year in a row, Switzerland has been named the most
innovative country in the world, according to the newest version
of a report published by Cornell University, the World Intellectual Property
Organization and graduate school INSEAD. The report has been coming
out annually since 2007.

If not chocolate, the secret sauce to driving innovation surely
must be talent. To compete on the global scale, countries need
their best minds to be getting the best class in education and
then working on their home turf -- not abroad.

The ranking surveys 143 economies around the world, using 81
indicators ranging from information and communication
technologies; business sophistication such as knowledge workers,
innovation linkages and knowledge absorption; and innovation
outputs such as creative goods and services and online
creativity.

The bottom line to driving innovation is smart people. But for
nations looking to up their innovation ranking, developing talent
requires complicated strategy.

“As innovation becomes a global game, a growing number of
emerging economies are confronted with complex issues whereby
‘brain gain’ can only be generated through a delicate balance
between talents outflows (e.g. citizens seeking an education
abroad) and inflows (whereby high performers return home to
innovate and create local jobs, and diasporas contribute to
national competitiveness),” says Bruno Lanvin, co-author of the
report and executive director at INSEAD.

While the same economies included in the top 10 and top 25
rankings remain by and large the same, Lanvin says that he has
observed “encouraging signs” that emerging economies are
improving their ability to keep talent.

As businesses become more connected online and global travel
becomes more common, innovation is going to increasingly happen
across geographical borders, Lanvin says.

“Innovation and sustainable growth go hand in hand. In a
boundary-less world such as ours, connected innovation is
increasingly gaining prominence,” Osman Sultan, CEO of Emirates
Integrated Telecommunications Company, says in the report. “This
is being fuelled [sic] by a more collaborative approach,
challenging conventional methodologies and freeing-up
efficiencies thereby benefitting everybody.”